The Slippery-Slidey Road Ahead

I foresee many opportunities ahead for incompetent flailing followed, inevitably, by falling on my behind.

“I would never have ended up with you if I had achieved the things I wanted!”

I actually said that to my husband once. Nice eh? What was in my heart was “Thank God for the failure of my silver plated dreams for that enabled me to find the solid gold that is you”. Sounds much better put like that doesn’t it?

You misunderstood when I said "beachfront property". I didn't feel the need to put that one right...

Luckily, when I made that statement he could see my face and hear my voice and was able to perceive what I truly meant by my ill-chosen words.

Because I make this kind of blunder regularly I prefer to hide behind text and e-mail but in doing so the inflection of the words is lost, there are no social cues for the reader and misunderstandings are exponentially more likely to occur.

A few years ago I had a cat named “Shoe” (no reason for that other than I like the way that word feels in my mouth). He was a lovely big healthy animal and viewed our neighbour’s lovingly tended vegetable garden as his personal en-suite. After all, he wouldn’t want to befoul his own yard would he? Anyway, many was the time I held back the laughter as I heard that neighbour clapping her hands and yelling “SHOO!” at him in an attempt to get him out of there. No doubt he merely thought she was shouting encouragement or congratulating him on a job well done. He always obediently trotted over to her when she shouted so she could thank him more personally.

So often our attempts to rectify a situation simply add to the problem.

Thus in summary, this year I intend to stop trying to force peaceful resolution when I come across discord. I will give the problem to God and let him deal with it. He can calm a storm with one word whereas all my hot air only adds to the turbulence.

We know this year will be bumpy, life just is. The only surety is that things will change. But when I write that I do so with a light in the eyes and a barely suppressed excitement and an inner cry of “Bring It On!”